Often had her mother inwardly trembled when she thought of such a sentiment influencing her Emmeline, and now the dreaded moment had come.

How was she to act?
She could not consent to an union such as this would be.

Few mothers possessed less ambition than Mrs.Hamilton, few were so indulgent, so devoted to her children, but to comply with the poor girl's feverish wishes would be indeed but folly.

Arthur had engaged himself to remain with Lord Louis Lyle during the period of his residence in Germany, which was at that time arranged to be three years.

The future to young Myrvin must, she knew, be a blank; years would in all probability elapse ere he could obtain an advantageous living and means adequate to support a wife and family; and would it not be greater cruelty to bid Emmeline live on in lingering and sickening hope, than at once to appeal to her reason, and entreat her, by the affection she bore her parents, to achieve this painful conquest of herself, as their consent could not be given.